OnePlus 7 Pro 5G variant has been launched in the UK alongside the regular OnePlus 7 Pro and OnePlus 7. The new model is notably the first OnePlus phone to support next-generation, 5G networks, and it is designed in partnership with Qualcomm and UK telco EE. OnePlus hasn't revealed the release date and price details of the OnePlus 7 Pro 5G. However, it did confirm at the launch event on Tuesday that the 5G-enabled phone will debut in the UK market later this year. On the specifications front, the OnePlus 7 Pro 5G is similar to the vanilla OnePlus 7 Pro, though it comes with a Snapdragon X50 modem to support 5G networks.

While unveiling the OnePlus 7 Pro 5G variant, CEO Pete Lau at the OnePlus 7-series launch in London, UK, on Tuesday highlighted that OnePlus had been working with Qualcomm and EE to launch its 5G phone for almost two years. Design-wise, the OnePlus 7 Pro 5G looks identical to its 4G counterpart, though there are several changes internally.

"We challenged ourselves to keep to the same design as the OnePlus 7 Pro," said Kate Parkyn, Head of Growth, OnePlus, at the launch event. "Though it might look the same on the outside, on the inside, it is very different."

OnePlus has expanded the cooling area by 50 percent and designed custom 5G antennas. The company also reduced the NFC antenna size by 50 percent.

"We adopted a stacked PCB design to maximise space," said Parkyn. "We conducted countless tumble tests to make sure that you got the durability that you expect from OnePlus... We expected the cooling area by 50 percent as well, and a 5G device needs 5G antennas but they take up a lot of space so we actually had to completely redesign them and over the course of five months of testing we have our own bespoke antenna shape."

In a press release disseminated following the launch event on Tuesday, EE announced that 50 of its first OnePlus 6T customers would be upgraded to a new OnePlus 7 Pro 5G and 5G plan -- free of charge. However, the official price of the OnePlus 7 Pro 5G is yet to be announced.

OnePlus 7 Pro 5G specifications

Similar to its regular model, the OnePlus 7 Pro 5G runs Android 9 Pie with OxygenOS on top and features a 90Hz Quad-HD+ (1440x3120 pixels) Fluid AMOLED display. The phone is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 SoC, paired up to 12GB of RAM.

In terms of optics, the OnePlus 7 Pro 5G has a triple rear camera setup. It is likely to have the same optics of the regular OnePlus 7 Pro that has a 48-megapixel Sony IMX586 sensor with an f/1.6 lens, 16-megapixel secondary sensor with an f/2.4 lens, and an 8-megapixel tertiary sensor with an f/2.4 lens. The phone has a pop-up selfie camera setup with a 16-megapixel sensor.

On the storage part, the regular OnePlus 7 Pro has 128GB and 256GB UFS 3.0 two-lane storage options. We're yet to receive the details about the storage of the 5G variant, though.

Is OnePlus 7 Pro an iPhone, Samsung Killer or yet another pretender? We discussed this on Orbital, our weekly technology podcast, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts or RSS, download the episode, or just hit the play button below.